


And Somewhere He Was Smiling

by theresnomeaning



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4663926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theresnomeaning/pseuds/theresnomeaning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't the bravest that Draco could be, but it was the best way, and how Harry had wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Somewhere He Was Smiling

Draco rested his forehead in the cold stone of the wall and exhaled loudly. The screams inside the room rose in volume and he fought the bile that threatened to reach his mouth. He spied inside the classroom and saw that Snape had a bored expression while he watched Pansy Parkinson using the  _Cruciatus_  on a muggleborn girl.

Malfoy took a deep breath, his face composed in the indifferent mask he wore. He sneered when he finally entered the classroom and stared at the whimpering girl. Pansy looked at him briefly, but soon returned her attention to her victim.

"Good morning, Mr. Malfoy." Snape said.

"Good morning." Draco replied.

"This is Draco Malfoy, he is a consultant from the Ministry." Snape spoke, looking to the side of the room where the pureblood sat. "He is here to analyse how proficient you are in the Dark Arts. I trust that you all will not embarrass me or the name you all carry." Snape's tone was icy, promising pain to anyone who dared score bad on the test.

Fuck the test, Draco thought.

"Miss Parkinson, as my apprentice, will be helping, demonstrating the curses before you all execute them."

Draco repressed the snort that almost came to his mouth. Pansy as Snape's apprentice was just an excuse for more curses, more pain, more viciousness.

Another muggleborn—a boy, this time—was brought to the front of the room. Pansy kicked his back, making him fall to his knees. When he looked up, staring at Pansy with defiance in his eyes, Draco almost swore.

The stupid boy!

"Eyes down!" Pansy hissed. "Don't you know your place?"

"Fuck you!" the boy shouted.

Pansy looked at Snape and he nodded.

"Avada Kedrava."

Some students stared, some startled—probably those who'd seen the killing curse for the first time. There was a dull sound when the boy's body fell to the ground.

"So you have seen that curse." Snape said as though they'd just seen something that wasn't the worst unforgivable of all. "You are to come forth and try it."

Draco leaned on a desk and waited for the freakshow to start.

.

Draco splashed water on his face and spat on the sink. Nausea was still cursing through his body, and he leaned, dry heaving.

"Draco."

He whirled around, staring at Severus Snape.

"Professor Snape." Draco replied.

"I am not your professor any more, Draco."

Snape was talking casually, but Draco knew that he was in danger. Fuck, he didn't know that Snape would be hovering over him on the bathroom.

"Are you ill, Draco?"

"No."

Snape raised one eyebrow, his expression sardonic.

"One would think that something upset you... perhaps the demonstration at the class?"

Fuck.

Before Draco could draw his wand he felt magic fill the room, rendering him defenceless.

"No need for that, Draco. I've come here to give you something." Snape reached his pocket and withdrew a silver thin chain.

Draco swallowed convulsively and closed his eyes, shutting them tight.

So that was the end.

_It was a beautiful day when Harry Potter died. There was not a cloud on the sky._

_People cried when the news that their saviour died reached every home in Britain. Hope was lost, and contrary to the calm weather, a storm was coming._

_A storm illuminated by green lightinings, followed by thunderous screams that would leave the streets bathed in blood, red falling like rain._

_Dumbledore was already dead, and the last hope of the Light was gone._

_It wasn't only the Light's hope that was gone, though._

_Nobody saw Draco Malfoy's expression of sorrow... Of course they didn't, because he only ever showed that when he was alone. When in public Draco wore his mask of glee and superiority. Harry Potter was dead, and the Dark Lord was victorious. What else could a Malfoy want?_

Draco extended his hand to reach the silver chain, trembling with anxiety. Oh Merlin, how he'd wondered where the silvery chain was. Snape did not stop him, but dropped the object on the blonde's hands. Draco felt the weight of the chain and the pendant. He looked at his hand and saw the pendant made of inox—a muggle thing that Harry never quite managed to explain its usefulness. It was the figure of a fox with blue eyes, just like he remembered. His hand unconsciously stroked his chest, where he knew that underneath the clothes was another pendant just like the one on his hand.

_"What is this?" Draco asked, turning the pendants on his hand._

_"A fox." Harry replied and leaned to kiss the blonde o the cheek._

_"What does it mean?"_

_"Don't know," Harry said shrugged. "I just liked it. I was drinking in Muggle London and figured I would like to give you this. Foxes are cool." he said and made a sign of thumbs up._

_Drinking in muggle London. Draco grimaced, knowing that the path Harry was in was a dangerous one. The Gryffindor was having far too many drinks lately._

_"I enchanted the pendants. They will be warm as long as we are alive and well."_

The pendant on Draco's hand was warm—contrary to the one he wore, only warmed by his body. That fucking hurt.

He wondered why Snape had taken so long to do this... he wondered what was the price for Snape's silence.

"Did you know?" Draco asked.

"To what are you referring, Draco?" Snape asked. "If I knew that you had a similar pendant? Or if I knew that Potter and you were fucking since you were in seventh year? If I knew that you wanted to cry when he died? If I knew that you are a spy?

"I taught Potter Occlumency, and I've seen way more than I wished for and more than Potter wanted to reveal."

Draco gasped, thinking about what Snape meant with those words...

"And I've kept this object waiting to return it to you at he right time, to fulfill his last request."

_The Dark Lord was away, gathering followers in Russia. It was during those days that Harry Potter was captured by Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. He was tossed in Malfoy Manor, being guarded by Death Eaters. Draco couldn't—didn't want to—believe that. No, not now..._

_Not when he had approached Potter, on his knees and begging for forgiveness and a second chance after the Dark Lord killed his mother. Not when he had found out that he and Potter had some things in common..._

_Not now when he'd found out something that he never thought possible to feel._

_Draco wanted to find a way to get Harry out of there, but only the Inner Circle was ever allowed in his cell._

_Three days later, after managing to get his hands on his aunt's hair for the Polyjuice, Draco found Harry's body in the dungeons of his family's manor. It was still warm. There were still droplets of sweat over his face and neck and Draco wondered how his last moments must have been. He was probably feverish, so maybe... maybe it was enough to give him some comfort in the illusions of fever._

_Taking Harry's body on his arms Malfoy noticed that his clothes soaked with a stick fluid. He turned his head down and saw a place on the floor shinning. Blood, so much blood._

_It wasn't fair. Harry wasn't supposed to die, not like that. Even the Dark Lord would be furious when he learned that his Death Eaters had killed his enemy, perhaps making he wonder forever if he would have been able to finally defeat the Boy-Who-Lived. Draco shuddered, thinking that whoever had killed Harry, his Harry, went a bit too far on the torture._

"His last request?"

"As I told you, Draco, I knew far a lot more about Potter than you can presume. I know a lot of your relationship..." Snape grimaced. "And I was trusted. And I was there."

Draco choked a breath. Snape was there... Snape was there...

"He asked me to return the pendant to you when it was needed. When  _you_  needed it. And he asked me to give you this." Snape placed on the sink a vial containing a silvery liquid. A memory. Harry's memory.

"Did you..." Draco couldn't finish the question.

"Are you asking if I killed him? Yes, I did, but who really tortured him before  _was_  your father. And your aunt. And your uncle..."

"Stop it!" Draco whispered, wincing. Draco had believed that his father killed Harry. Fuck, even he Dark Lord believed that! Lucius was dead because of that!

"I must go now." Snape said, gripping his left arm. "It would be good if in the future you control better your emotions as it would have been very unpleasant if someone else found you here, vomiting and clearly disturbed by the common event you watched earlier."

"What do you care?"

"I don't." Snape said and turned his back to Draco.

"Then why did you kill him, and why are you doing this? Why did you keep your word to Harry?"

Snape stopped. "Because it was right." he murmured without turning and left the bathroom.

.

Harry and Draco had never declared their love. Not aloud. That was too dangerous, because a declaration made one yearn for better days, it gave hope, and hope was the most dangerous thing during that time. Not even the Gryffindor was brave enough to express his emotions.

As the years passed Draco had needed some reassurance that what he and Harry lived had been real... Something more than remembrances of touches, kisses, cries. He needed the words.

Even then, he didn't expect to find that in the memory that Snape gave him.

_Harry was looking tenderly at a sleeping Draco. His eyes were unguarded without the glasses. It was a rainy day, and it was cold._

_Resting his head on Draco's shoulder, Harry trailed his fingers over his lover's chest and whispered._

_"I love you."_

_His tone was dry, but not without emotion._

_"I love you." He repeated, a bit louder and firmer this time._

_Harry startled when Draco mumbled his reply. "I love you too."_

_And Harry smiled widely, until his smile turned into a fool grin._

_._

There was a spell written in the back of the pendant, a spell that Draco had heard of, a spell that depleted one's magic. A spell that some wizards and witches—majorly muggleborn—had used.

It depleted a person of their magic. Without magic they could not be traced by magical means.

Draco tossed the vial with the memory in the fire. Someone without magic would not be able to use a pensieve.

Not that he would need one.

He visited his mother's grave, knowing that he probably would not be able to go there soon, or ever again. After that, Draco went to the place where he'd buried Harry.

Despite what he was going to do, Draco felt at peace. He was going to be the person that Harry would have liked him to be, given the circumstances Perhaps not brave enough to stay and fight... But brave enough to find a new perspective, to build a new life from the ashes. Brave enough to dare to be happy, even when he had nothing, no one.

He was sure that somewhere Harry was smiling just like in that memory.

It was a beautiful day when Harry Potter died. There was not a cloud on the sky.


End file.
